


The Lonely Christmas Vampire: A Love Story

by mariothellama



Category: Football RPF
Genre: A Christmas fairytale, And there aren't any really 'vampire' things in the story, Finding true love, M/M, Marco is a vampire, but this isn't Twilight, melancholy feel but with a happy ending, more a kind of gothic feel, set in Victorian London, this is really a love story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-19
Updated: 2016-12-19
Packaged: 2018-09-09 22:24:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8915299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mariothellama/pseuds/mariothellama
Summary: A Christmas fairytale about finding true love even when you have lost all hope of ever finding it. Marco is a lonely vampire, who has wandered the earth alone for centuries, until he looks through a window and sees a family's Christmas celebrations.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Español available: [El solitario vampiro de Navidad: una historia de amor](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9051643) by [Deiv17](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deiv17/pseuds/Deiv17)



> This isn't the last thing I will post before Christmas, but I am putting the same message on all my pre-Christmas fics/chapters. For all those of my readers for whom this is a holiday season, I would like wish you all the best for a happy and peaceful holiday. 
> 
> And I would like to take the opportunity to thank all of you who have ever taken the time to leave comments or kudos. I know that we fic writers can seem like a needy bunch at times, but we really do appreciate knowing that people are reading and - hopefully! - enjoying our stories. That helps us to keep going even when it is difficult or the muse is hiding from us.
> 
> If you have ever thought about commenting and wondered whether or not to, go ahead! You could genuinely make someone's day. It doesn't have to be long or insightful, even an 'I liked it' is enough to make a fic writer happy. And nobody cares about spelling or grammar (and you should see my written German; that is shocking!) You can even make up a user name. Although I have got to know some wonderful people through commenting on their fics, who have really enriched my life!

Marco stepped out of a cloud of dark fog whirling in the night air, sweeping his long black cloak around his tall, slender frame. His skin was pale, his features were sharp and his eyes sparkled in a myriad of different shades of amber, shimmering across an ever-changing spectrum of green to gold to brown. It was hard to discern precisely what colour those hypnotic eyes were and to look too long and too deep into Marco’s eyes was dangerous and carried with it the risk of losing your heart and soul forever. His hair shone like spun gold as it reflected the lights twinkling in the windows of the houses that lined the street.

Marco was drawn to one large window in particular, one that framed the Christmas celebrations taking place in the parlour of a comfortable family home. It was Christmas Eve and the heavy velvet curtains had been left open to reveal the picture-perfect Christmas scene within, one which could have come straight from the pages of a novel by Charles Dickens: the soft glow of candlelight; the beautifully decorated Christmas tree; the pile of brightly wrapped presents; the table groaning with food and, above all, the faces of a happy, smiling, loving family.

Marco’s heart clenched with pain. It hurt to look, but he couldn’t look away. For he wasn’t really looking at the decorations or the presents, eye-catching as they were; he was looking for him, for the young man on whom his continued existence quite literally depended. Part of Marco wanted him to have forgotten him, to have moved on with his life in the year they had been apart. But part of Marco so desperately wanted him to still love him, to still want to spend the rest of eternity with him.

And then he saw him. Saw those beautiful dark brown eyes looking at him. Saw the smile that told Marco everything he needed to know. Despite all of his reservations, Marco felt nothing but complete and utter joy at that moment, his heart overflowing with happiness.

Marco nodded in response and leapt elegantly into the air, his cloak swirling round him as he glided effortlessly to the upper floor of the house where, as he had hoped against hope in the deepest recesses of his heart, the young man had left his bedroom window open. Marco settled himself on the bed to await the arrival of the one who held the key to his future, the young man who had captured an old heart that had seen too much pain and sadness to have believed that it would be capable of loving and being loved ever again.

***

Marco had stood before this window for the first time just over a year ago, his nose pressed to the glass. He didn’t know what had drawn him here in the course of his lonely wanderings over the earth. Marco was tired. And alone. And tired of being alone. Of being alone for hundreds of years. He didn’t know how long he would be able to continue to exist like this. Being immortal didn’t mean that you had to live forever. And the scene he was almost greedily drinking in just reinforced all of the things that Marco didn’t have: light and love; a family and a home.

A young man caught his eye, dark-haired with beautiful dark eyes, eyes you could lose yourself in and never want to be found again. And the young man seemed to be looking straight at Marco, seemed to be smiling. That made no sense at all as Marco couldn’t be seen unless he wanted to be and right now he didn’t. But this young man seemed to be able to see him.

Confused and perplexed, Marco glided away into the velvet darkness of the night. The night was where he belonged, the night was his true home, not the love and warmth of a family he could never have. But Marco couldn’t stay away. He was drawn back again the next night, and the night after that, and the night after that, drawn to torture himself by gazing at scenes from a life he could never have, like a moth drawn to burn in the flame of a candle.

He watched the house from the shadows, watching the young man who had come to fascinate him ascend the stairs to his bedroom, watching as the candles were extinguished for the night. Marco couldn’t help himself and he leapt up to balance elegantly on the window sill so that he could watch over the young man as he lay sleeping. Marco watched his chest rise and fall with every breath, could see the blood pulsing in his veins.

The young man was so vital and alive, so full of promise for the future. He was everything Marco had ever wanted. But he knew he could never have him, so he contented himself with watching. He came back night after night, unable to keep away.

It happened on the fourth night. Marco was startled by a face appearing at the window, a face lit up by beautiful dark brown eyes. The window opened and a head poked out. ‘I know you are there,’ he said. ‘You’ve been watching me for days now. Don’t you want to come in?’

Marco swallowed. This was unexpected. ‘How can you see me?’ he demanded.

‘I don’t know,’ said the young man. ‘I know that my family can’t see you because I asked them. Maybe we are meant to be together? Maybe you are the destiny I have been waiting so long for?’

The young man smiled and Marco knew that he was lost, irretrievably lost forever. And what the young man had said in jest was what Marco so desperately wanted to be true, but knew to be impossible.

‘Don’t you want to come inside?’ the young man repeated.

‘You have to give me permission to come inside,’ was Marco’s answer. ‘And once you do, I can enter as and when I like.’

‘That’s alright. Please come inside and visit me in my bedroom, mysterious stranger. I’d really like it if you would.’

Marco had to ask, ‘Aren’t you afraid of me?’

‘No, of course not,’ laughed the young man, ‘I know that you would never hurt me.’ And he stretched out his hand to stroke Marco’s cheek.

Marco flinched as if he had been burned. Nobody had touched him in over a hundred years.

‘I’m sorry,’ the young man apologised, ‘I shouldn’t have done that.’

‘It’s alright. It’s just … it’s just that nobody has touched me in a very, very long time.’

‘Oh, how sad,’ said the young man and he ever so slowly stretched out his hand again to caress Marco’s cheek. Marco couldn’t help himself this time and he turned his head to nestle against the young man’s palm, his lips grazing across the warm skin.

‘I’m Mario. And won’t you please come in? It’s getting cold in here with the window open.’

‘I’m Marco. And only if you are really sure.’

Marco entered the young man’s bedroom and sat down in a large leather armchair, while Mario (as he now knew the young man was called) lounged on his bed.

‘Why have you been alone for so long?’ Mario asked.

‘Well, I’m a … I’m a … ’

‘A vampire. Yes, I know. I knew it at once.’

‘And still you’re not afraid of me?’

‘No. There is something about you that tells me that you would never hurt me. Indeed exactly the opposite. And anyway, if you had been going to hurt me, you would have done so by now.’

Marco nodded. That made some kind of sense. But this was all becoming too surreal, even by the standards of a five-hundred year old vampire.

‘I refuse to prey on humans. There are other ways for me to live. But, even though I am stronger than any human, the fact that I don’t drink human blood makes me weaker than vampires who do. So I stay away from them. And that makes it hard to find others like me. It is too dangerous. And humans … well humans have a mortal life span.’

There was a sadness in Marco’s voice that Mario chose not to question further.

‘Is there a solution?’

‘Yes,’ sighed Marco, ‘if I could find a vampire whom I truly loved, if our two hearts could truly beat as one, and we shared one another’s blood, then we would be stronger than the strongest vampires and could live in peace forever with others like us.’

‘I see,’ mused Mario. ‘You can fly, can’t you?’

‘Kind of,’ answered Marco, ‘it’s more like leaping, but yes.’

‘That will do. I want you to take me onto the roof to see the stars.’

Marco wrapped Mario up in a heavy quilt as the night was cold. Mario wrapped his arms round Marco’s neck, looking up at him with such profound trust in his eyes that Marco’s heart almost missed a beat. Then Marco ever so carefully lifted Mario up and leapt onto the roof with him.

They sat there, huddled close together, perched on the roof tiles amidst the chimney tops. The night sky was free from clouds and they could see the moon and the stars. Marco pointed out all of the constellations to Mario and told him of all the wonders he had seen over the centuries, of shooting stars and all the wondrous phases of the moon.

After a while Mario yawned sleepily and climbed onto Marco’s lap. ‘Wrap your cloak around me,’ he ordered, ‘I want to go to sleep.’

‘Aren’t you cold?’

‘No, you will keep me warm. You are warm, you know. Even though you are a vampire.’

So Marco held Mario close and tight in his arms through the night. That was the most magical night of Marco’s five-hundred year existence, sitting there on that starlit rooftop, holding Mario’s warm, sleeping body close to his chest, simply watching him breathe. None of the wonders that Marco had seen were as beautiful, as fascinating or as precious as the young man in his arms.

As the first bright fingers of dawn’s light appeared on the horizon, Marco gently lifted up the still sleeping Mario and took him back to his bed. He tucked Mario in ever so tenderly and could not resist the temptation to plant a solitary soft kiss on his forehead.

As Marco reluctantly turned to leave, he heard Mario’s voice, still half asleep. ‘You will come back tomorrow, Marco? Won’t you? I’ll leave the window open at sunset.’

As Marco fled through the last remnants of the darkness of Christmas Eve, he heard the church bells begin to ring out to celebrate the dawning of Christmas Day, the dawning of a day that symbolised an eternal message of love and hope.

And of course Marco came back. He couldn’t help himself. He couldn’t stay away. Even though he knew that this would break his heart so much that it would finally be too much to bear, that he would never be able to go on when he finally had to say goodbye to Mario.

They spent every evening and every night of the Christmas season together, from Christmas Eve until Twelfth Night. They talked for hours until Mario finally had to snatch some sleep cradled in Marco’s arms. And every day Marco waited until the first light of dawn was visible in the sky before tearing himself from Mario’s side.

For as Mario learned, daylight was not fatal to Marco, but his pale skin would burn and blister in direct sunlight and therefore he preferred to avoid it, spending his days inside. That was why winter was his favourite time of year, when the hours of darkness were longer than the hours of daylight.

And Mario also learned that much of what was written in the gothic horror novels that were so popular at the time was untrue. There were herbs and plants that could make Marco sick, but not kill him. And he could quite happily enter a church, indeed Marco had a fondness for church architecture. But the writers of fiction had got one thing right: there was one way, and one way alone, that a vampire’s life could be ended.

But Marco preferred to talk about his travels, about all the places he had been and the wonders he had seen. About all the lifetimes he had led before he came to London.

And then it happened, what Marco had longed for and feared so much. One night he felt Mario’s arms round his neck. He felt Mario’s lips on his. He felt Mario’s warm, soft, sweet lips pressed against his and it felt so much better than anything he had ever felt before. Marco couldn’t help himself. He responded to Mario with all the passion he felt, kissing Mario until they were both breathless and dizzy.

Mario wasn’t at all afraid and Marco even felt how Mario’s curious tongue explored the sharp points of his teeth. For of course the passionate feelings kissing Mario had aroused had also revealed Marco’s true nature. He let Mario see all of that now, let him see his eyes sparkling iridescent like diamonds, let him see his teeth sharp and pointed.

‘But you would never hurt me,’ Mario said again.

‘No, I never could,’ breathed Marco, feeling the wonder of true love beating in his heart after all these centuries. ‘But now we need to say goodbye forever, Mario. This can never be. Not between us. You need to live your life. And I … ’ Well Marco would never let Mario know what saying goodbye would mean for him.

‘But there is another way. A way we can be together forever. It’s what I want. With all my heart,’ pleaded Mario.

‘No Mario. I could never do that to you. You need to live your life. Marry. Have children. Grow old. You need to live. I could never forgive myself if I took that away from you.’

‘But there is no guarantee that any of that would even happen. I could die of typhus or cholera, or any one of the other diseases that stalk the streets of this city. Or die in some pointless foreign war defending the Empire. You’d be saving me from that. You’d be giving me life.’

They argued for hours until finally Marco was worn down. He agreed that he would come back the following Christmas Eve and, if Mario still wanted this, then Marco would grant him his wish. But he made Mario promise to explore his life to the fullest during their year apart to make sure that this was what he really wanted.

Saying goodbye to Mario had cost all of Marco’s strength. They had kissed until the sun’s rays were high enough in the sky to cause Marco discomfort. So he had turned and left without one last backward look, believing – and half hoping – that he would never see Mario again.

Marco had wandered the earth alone for a year, unable to stay in London, to stay in a London where Mario was and be apart from him. And a year later he came back …

***

Marco was lying on Mario’s bed, still sunk deep in thought when the door was opened and Mario came running towards him and flung himself into Marco’s arms.

Their kiss was long, deep and passionate, neither of them wanting to let each other go for a very long time. Eventually they had to stop to draw breath and Marco gazed in wonder at Mario.

Finally Marco spoke, ‘So you still want to be with me?’

‘I always knew I wanted to be with you. I knew it from the first moment I saw you. This year apart was for you, as otherwise you would always have felt guilty at taking me from this life.

But I only agreed to a year away from you as I knew that after it was over we would have the rest of eternity together.’

Marco could hardly breathe. This was more than he had ever dreamed of. So they kissed again.

‘But what about your parents? Your brothers? Won’t you miss them?’

‘Of course I will. I can come back and see them for the first few years. After that it will become too obvious that I am not getting any older and I will tell them that I am moving to South America.’

‘We could even really move to South America,’ Marco laughed, taking Mario in his arms and holding him tight as he danced round the room with joy and happiness.

They agreed that Mario would spend this Christmas with his family, that they would all have a last, perfect family Christmas together. But Mario slept safe and sound in Marco’s arms every night as there was no other place he would rather be.

Twelfth Night came and went and as the clock struck midnight to signal the end of the 6th of January, Marco took Mario’s face in his hands and looked him deep in the eyes.

‘I have to ask this one last time. I have to ask if you are completely sure. Do you really want this?’

‘Yes,’ was all Mario said, never taking his eyes from Marco’s. And then he willing bared his vulnerable throat to Marco, ready to take the first step towards spending an eternity with the man he loved, their two hearts beating as one forever.


End file.
